The album features a cover of the 1974 Kiss song "Goin' Blind". The songs "Hooch", "Lizzy" and "Honey Bucket" were released as singles with accompanying music videos. "Night Goat" is a partial re-recording of a song the band had released as a single in 1992. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain is given co-production credit alongside the Melvins on six tracks, for guitar on the song "Sky Pup", and percussion on the song "Spread Eagle Beagle".

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Kurt Cobain (pictured in 1992) was given a production credit on Houdini

Cobain was accepted by Melvins as a producer to the album after an A&R at Atlantic Records, who also ran Cobain's management company, suggested him.[1] Despite receiving a co-producer credit, the extent of Cobain's involvement in the album is questionable. Andrew Earles, who included Houdini on his book, Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981-1996, stated that Cobain allegedly slept through most of the sessions.[2] Jonathan Burnside, a collaborator of Melvins and engineer on Houdini remembered: "It's not easy reminiscing about making the album Houdini with Kurt Cobain and the Melvins. Bad communication, drugs, majorlabel profiteering, rehab, schedule blowouts, backstabbing, and album miscrediting... it was a devil's album."[3] Speaking to Kerrang! in 2008, Melvins guitarist and vocalist Buzz Osbourne, who later said in 2009 that Cobain was "in no shape to produce anything,"[1] remembered:

"Houdini was the first album we did for Atlantic Records and certainly our biggest selling record, although not so much that I could put a down-payment on a new Rolls or something! It came on the whole tidal wave of Nirvana stuff and I'm sure if it weren't for that we wouldn't have had interest from a major at all. We wanted to do a record that wouldn't alienate our fans, but we wanted to do one that we would like. We also knew we weren’t gonna be dusting off a platinum album any time soon, you know? We did a bunch of sessions with Kurt Cobain [producing], but it got to the point where he was so out of control that we basically fired him and went our separate ways, which is unfortunate, because I think that would have been fun. Obviously that was a little snapshot of what would end up happening and I don't have a whole lot of fond memories of that – it was an absolute tragedy."[4]

Though the album's liner notes list Lorax as the band's bassist, she does not appear to have played on the album. On the credits for bass, Osborne stated: "This album is mostly just me and Dale Crover. Either I played bass or he did on almost all of it regardless of what the credits say…"[5]

Houdini features a sludge metal,[6]grunge[7] and doom metal sound.[2]Spin critic Jonathan Gold described the record as "not precisely an accessible mainstream album in the 'alternative' mode, not with its random-sounding ten-minute percussion solo, mumbled, cut'n'paste Beef- heartian lyrics, and tempos so slow they make Flipper seem as speedy as Slayer."[8] Earles thought that the album showcases two different versions of Melvins: "a noticeably better variety of the slow, ungodly heavy, yet melodic off-kilter doom-metal with which the band made its mark in previous years, and speedier fare, like a thick and weird sludge-thrash driven by catchy, inspired songwriting."[2]AllMusic's Patrick Kennedy regarded the album as a "full fruition" of the outfit's "syrupy distillation of Sabbath riffage and Flipper's noisy anti-punk" that was originally pried open on Eggnog (1991) and Bullhead (1991) releases.[9]

Houdini is considered as Melvins' commercially biggest release. It has sold 110,000 copies[11] and peaked at number 29 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart. The track "Honey Bucket" also received MTV airplay.[12]

AllMusic critic Patrick Kennedy wrote: "With their voluminous output and determination to continuously expand their sound regardless of musical trends, the Melvins oeuvre has begun to rival -- at least on paper -- the career arcs of Frank Zappa and Neil Young."[9] Jonathan Gold of Spin stated: "A few sections are recorded so hot that the guitar distortion literally breaks up into white noise in your speakers; other songs — the hits — are classic Melvins tuneage, which means that they will make you wonder if the batteries are going dead in your boom-box."[8]Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot thought that the album "asserts that a major-label deal hasn't watered them down a bit, though their king-size slam sounds clearer and punchier."[10]

Treblezine named Houdini as one of the "10 Essential Sludge Metal Albums"[6] and "The 30 Best Grunge Albums".[13]Diffuser.fm rated it as number 10 on its list of "10 Best Grunge Albums"[7] The track "Hooch" is rated as one of the best songs of the decade by Pitchfork in the book The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present.[14]

Some vinyl copies include a cover of "Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)", originally by the MC5, instead of "Spread Eagle Beagle". A Japanese CD release (catalog# AMCY-625) also contains "Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)" as the 14th track at the end of the disc, coming after "Spread Eagle Beagle".